ROAD HUNTER

like setting up in brush, making sure my back is covered and the outline of my body fully hidden should a cat approach from below.”

Buddies and I targeted coyotes in the dense Douglas fir forests of the Cascade Mountains and more than once over the years we took a mixed bag. Using dense cover was instrumental in our hunts, but occupying heavy shadows was also a major benefit. When targeting multiple predators at once, setting up in thick cover, utilizing heavy shadows and playing the wind are all essential to success.

The Calls

While not all predators approach your calls in the same manner, they will respond to the same sounds. As for the calls, Ayres likes mimicking the food sources in the area he’s hunting, and mixing them up. “We’ve had luck on just about everything over the years, from all kinds of rabbit distress sounds, fawn distress calls, even rodent sounds work very well.”

Not long ago I was calling in the rolling sagebrush hills with willowlined draws in the desert Southwest. There was a jackrabbit boom in the area; the most I’d seen in well over a decade. So, that’s the sound I went with.

Over the course of the morning, I called in seven coyotes from four different sets. That evening I returned to the same region, focusing my calling in the shaded draws rather than the more open ridges. I called in two more coyotes, along with a bobcat and gray fox, and all with a mix of jackrabbit distress sounds.

I’m a firm believer in having a range of bird distress sounds at your disposal, too. I’ve used bird sounds to coax in coyotes, badgers, bobcats, raccoons and black bears. I like using open-reed mouth calls, as they allow for a great variety of sounds to be generated, including bird sounds.

“In February I really like pup distress sounds,” points out Ayres. “Male coyotes really react to those sounds this time of year.”

Ayres doesn’t use a whole lot of coyote vocalization other than that, largely due to the availability of food in the area he hunts, but also because he has a good chance of calling in a bobcat or cougar in most places.

“Like many hunters around the West, we’re having more and more cougars come to elk calls during archery elk season,” he confirms. “We also have bears come to the calls from time to time. They seem to respond very well to fawn distress sounds in the spring.”

Mixed bag predator success simply comes down to being within earshot of predators, then offering them a sound they can’t refuse. “I like using mouth calls,” points out Ayres. “I have better control of the sounds I make, and I think it brings in more predators than the electronic calls I’ve used. But I do use electronic calls, I just don’t place them very far from me when calling in places where bobcats and cougars are. These cats can hang back in the brush before making a move on a food source, and